Finally, some common sense in this world.

If you're tired of your human rights being trampled on -- like not being able to take free vacations every year -- then you're in luck.  At least if you're over in Europe, anyway.

The Times of London is reporting that the European Union could declare tourism to be a basic human right, and if you can't afford to travel, then government should take care of the expense for you.

Under the pilot program, citizens living in Northern Europe will be encouraged to travel to Southern Europe and vice versa.

Not only do you get a free trip, but the program will help "promote a sense of pride in European culture and bridge the north-south divide in the continent and prop up resorts in their off-season."

When you think about it, it all makes sense.

"Why should someone from the Mediterranean not be able to travel to Edinburgh in summer for a breath of cool, fresh air; why should someone from Edinburgh not be able to travel to Greece in winter?” asked the spokesman for the the European Union commissioner responsible for the measure.

No kidding. Why should anyone have to pay out of their own pockets to take a vacation? Oh, the humanity.

Sure, there are some Negative Nancies out there. Predictably, from the doomsayers over at Fox News.

"That is what happens when government looks after you," Neil Cavuto writes. "It looks after 'all' of you and 'all' you do. Your 'stimulus' and now your 'suitcase.'

"And before you know it, your rights include everything from raising your fist in protest to your drink in delight," he adds.

And Fox's John Stossel gets all historical about it instead of thinking progressively.

"It’s amazing how watered-down the idea of 'rights' has become since Jefferson wrote about 'certain unalienable Rights… among these Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' But at least the U.S. government isn’t giving away vacations yet," he writes.

Sadly, Stossel is probably right.

Although Dan Proft over at WLS radio might know something otherwise. After all, WLS is in Chicago. He might have a source. And if so, the president's on the case.

Writes Proft: "Obama administration officials are scrambling in the wake of the latest offering by the European Union in what has become a game of one-upmanship between the fertile imaginations of statists creating wonderful new 'rights' heretofore misunderstood as merely opportunities."

Good. Put me down for two tickets to the World Series and I prefer Jet Blue.

-- Jimmy Orr

Photo: The scene at Daytona Beach, Fla., during spring break in March. And just imagine how much happier they'd be if they knew tourism was a human right. Credit: Stephen M. Dowell / Orlando Sentinel

Why should it stop at vacations?  We think it is a basic human right to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item too. Just follow us at @latimestot. You can also join our Facebook FAN page here.

First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a hopeless fight against American obesity with a program called "Let's Move."

No, not "Let's Move On to Dessert."

She goes to Mississippi Wednesday to fight fat and will be coming to a town near you soon to admirably promote healthier eating and more exercise, especially for youngsters. Trying to convince Americans that carrot cake is not a veggie should keep her plate full for however many presidential terms her pie-loving, cigarette-smoking husband wins.

But now the Gallup Poll has helpfully come out with a study of 187 metropolitan areas across the country.

They looked at something called the Body Mass Index, which measures height and other numbers you don't want to know to decide if you -- yes, you reading this right now -- are officially obese.

The Officially Obesest Cities are a tie, ladies and gentlemen. Montgomery, Alabama and Stockton, California. Cake all around for everyone.

They came out with a 34.6% number of adults rated as obese. Ugh. That sounds awful, doesn't it? At least until you figure out your own obesity level based on Body Mass Index which, frankly, we intend to do sometime next weekend, probably.

That 34.6% of adults is way larger than the not-all-that-good-either-national-average of 26.5. That BMI poundage rate is like the unemployment rates these days, up from 2008's, at  25.5. (BTW, a BMI of 30 is officially obese; more than 25 is getting close.)

And here's the best part for any online readers munching a snack right now:

Those hoity-toity, glamorous, arrogant Californians who are always escaping the blizzards and complaining about freezing 50-degree temperatures cutting down their winter beach time, come off really, really badly.

All that bikini rollerblading you see in the TV shows apparently hasn't caught on for real.

Three of the nation's Top Ten grossest-fattest-lardiest metropolitan areas are in the Golden state, which should really be named for a species of french fry.

Visalia/Porterville comes in third place at 34.1%. And good old-boy Bakersfield comes in seventh at 33.6% of obese adults.

The York/Hanover area of tubby Pennsylvania comes in fourth at 34, followed by fatty Flint, Michigan at 33.9.

McAllen, Edinburg and Mission, Texas share the No. 6 spot with 33.7.

No. 8 is limping Lynchburg, Virginia at 33, the same as the Huntington/Ashland area of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

Weighing in at No. 10 is the Kingsport/Bristol area of Tennessee/Virginia.

The survey found some common characteristics to the ten tubbiest towns: 

In none of them except Stockton (51%) do a majority claim to exercise frequently, not counting raising forks and spoons to the mouth area.

Nowhere do more than 62% admit to eating vegetables frequently.

And the smokers range from Visalia's 15.7% up to Lynchburg's 31.7%.

Somewhere, it must be dinner time.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Associated Press (Obama debarking Air Force One summer 2009).

For once, it's not only the White House that's white. The grounds are too, thanks to a major snowstorm that swept up the East Coast quieting the weekend's political dialogue. A more natural kind of snow job. (More photos below.).....

President Obama's Nobel Banquet Toast, as provided by the White House

The Grand Hotel, Oslo, Norway

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Your Majesties, Your Excellencies, Your Royal Highnesses -- to all my friends, my family.  This is obviously an extraordinary evening, and I must say -- I was telling the committee members that, having entirely exhausted myself with the speech this afternoon -- (laughter and applause) -- I have -- I spoke for a very long time. (Laughter.) I have only a very few words to say. 

First of all, I would like to thank the committee once again for the extraordinary confidence that they placed in me and this great honor that I have received tonight.  As I indicated before, no one was more surprised than me.  (Laughter.)  And I have to say that when the....

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what the pollsters just brought in.

A pair of new surveys revealing that President Obama is still declining and has hit a new low in job approval among Americans just 56 weeks after they elected him with a decided margin.

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FOR THE RECORD:
A Top of the Ticket post Tuesday on the relative popularity of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama erred in stating in the text and the headline that there was a Palin-Obama gap of 1 point. Two separate polls were cited, as the post notes, so the findings are not directly comparable.

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And -- wait for it -- Republican Sarah Palin is successfully selling a whole lot more than books out there on the road. Even among those not lining up in 10-degree weather to catch a glimpse of pretty much the only political celebrity the GOP has these days.

First, el jefe. Facing double-digit unemployment, rising spending, deficits and Afghan war casualties plus a keystone but stalled healthcare reform effort that caused a rare Sunday presidential visit to Capitol Hill, Obama recently fell below 50% job approval for the first time.

Then, last week's deft dance of rhetoric over sending reinforcements to Afghanistan but, on the other foot, bringing them home quickly maybe gave him a brief boost. That, however, collapsed with equal rapidity.

Obama's new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama's closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin's little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable. [A previous version of this post said that, at 46%, Palin was “just one point below her fellow basketball fan." The CNN/Opinion Research Poll did not ask respondents about Obama.]

(The same poll, btw, has bad news for Dick Cheney-haters; the outspoken former VP has climbed out of the 29% basement, back up to 39% now. How do you suppose he's done that without a new book? But that's another story.)

Not that either Palin or Obama will admit caring about such trivial things as disparate political polls....

During the presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama accused George W. Bush of ignoring the pleas for help from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, leading a government that "sits on its hands while a major American city drowns." Today he made his first trip to the devastated region since becoming president. Before he even stepped down, locals were already accusing him of not doing enough.

Folks in Mississippi were upset that Obama did not visit them. "I'm greatly disappointed he's not coming to Mississippi," said Tommy Longo, mayor of Waveland, Miss., where few structures were undamaged by the hurricane. "There was no city hit harder than Waveland."

Folks in New Orleans were upset that Obama only spent four hours with them. "A town hall event and a mystery stop? That's it?" the Times-Picayune newspaper editorialized last week.

And the fabled restaurateurs of the French Quarter were kind of upset that the president didn't have time for a proper meal. Something about a town hall meeting and a visit to a school.

But, being more enterprising than their political counterparts, the foodies knew just what to do.

Contacting the White House (where presidential aide Desiree Rogers is a New Orleans native -- and two-time Zulu Queen), Leah Chase, the 86-year old chef and owner of the legendary Creole restaurant Dooky Chase, arranged for a takeout meal for the presidential party. Two Secret Service agents showed up Wednesday to talk to the restaurant about "secure" takeout packaging, whatever that means.

Chase wasn't surprised -- Bush had eaten at her restaurant, and so had candidate Obama, seen above.

So, if all goes well, as they wing toward San Francisco for a fundraiser, Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the others will be munching on gumbo, shrimp creole and fried chicken. 

Leah Chase isn't worried. The gumbo should be kept warm, she advised, but her fried chicken is just fine served cold.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

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Just returned from the Massachusetts funeral of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, his mother-in-law, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a full briefing on the coastal fire situation Saturday afternoon in Watsonville.

The funeral for the mother of California's First Lady Maria Shriver and the founder of Special Olympics was on Friday in Hyannis, as reported on The Ticket here.

Saturday Schwarzenegger met with state wildfire fighters and (above) Matthew Bettenhausen (left) and Del Walters, director of CAL FIRE. Bettenhausen is acting secretary of the state's Emergency Management Agency.

Schwarzenegger said there are currently 11 major fires burning across the nation's third largest state. Forces have made some progress but worry over impending weather changes in the north. And he told local citizens, "We will do everything in our power in order to save properties, to save lives and to save your memories.”

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Justin Short / Office of the Governor

These are the same lawmakers who pummeled Wall Street executives when they "testified" before Congress, excoriating them for taking bonuses while Americans were losing their jobs and their homes amid the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Now, with 14 million Americans still out of work, Congress is seeking $550 million for eight new aircraft that would increase the fleet the Air Force uses to ferry senators and representatives to war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan as well less dangerous locations like London, Paris and the Galapagos.

No question, congressional travel is on the upswing. Overseas trips by lawmakers has increased almost tenfold since 1995. Last year, members of Congress spent $13 million in travel expenses, not counting airfare. So the Obama administration requested $220 million in its budget to buy four passenger jets for congressional use, including two that are currently being leased by the Air Force.

For some reason, the House Appropriations Committee thought that wasn't enough. So just before lawmakers left for August recess, the House doubled the order to eight aircraft, at a cost of $550 million.

With the measure on its way to the Senate, opposition there is mounting.

"The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach," Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill told the Wall Street Journal. "It is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed -- that people get out of touch and they spend money like it's Monopoly money."

Republican John McCain, the maverick Arizona senator who has made a career of fighting pork barrel projects, is also said to be opposing the appropriation. He leaves soon with other senators on a week-long trip to Libya, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iceland.

The uproar is partly of their own making. In 2007, with Democrats newly in control of both the Senate and the House, Congress passed S. 1, the "Honest Leadership, Open Government Act." Cracking down on lobbyist gifts and tightening ethics procedures, the bill also created an online, searchable public database of lawmakers' travel and personal financial disclosure forms.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Getty Images

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Just after 3 p.m. today, the Senate confirmed federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the third woman and first Latino to sit on the nation's highest court.

Sotomayor watched the debate from her office in New York.

For the last few weeks, ever since her high-profile confirmation hearings in Washington, Sotomayor has been quietly back in New York, visiting her courtroom office, taking clerks to lunch, surrounded by a security detail. TMZ, the Los Angeles-based celebrity gossip website, caught her walking in TriBeCa last week and treated her like, well, a celebrity.

"What do you think of Rosie Perez playing you in a movie?" shouted the website's reporter. The judge -- in black blazer and top, white pants and white sneakers, graduated from the crutches that became part of her uniform after a fall on Capitol Hill -- threw back her head and laughed. Later the reporter got very excited about Sotomayor crossing the street, calling it his video's "Abbey Road" moment."

Meanwhile, back in Washington, real estate agents are speculating -- salivating? -- over prospects that Sotomayor will soon need a place to live there. Georgetown Realtor Gay Pirozzi, herself a former New Yorker, said Sotomayor is arriving "just at right time -- not only for politics but the market is great." Besides, said the Coldwell Banker agent, "everybody wants her in their neighborhood." 

-- Johanna Neuman

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It was another first in presidential history.

When President Obama left the White House on Thursday for Andrews Air Force Base, the Marine One helicopter that lifted off from the South Lawn was piloted by the first female helicopter aircraft commander in Marine One history. Maj. Jennifer Grieves of Glendale, Ariz., flew her first Marine One mission in May 2008, and had flown Obama and then-President George W. Bush.

In honor of Grieves' last day in the rotation, the Marines assigned two other female officers -- Maj. Jennifer L. Marino, of Palisade, Colo., and Sgt. Rachael A. Sherman, of Traverse City, Mich. -- to complete the crew. And that all-female crew was another first.

Marines say Grieves is off to Command and Staff College in Quantico, Va.

When the president boarded Marine One en route to try to salvage Gov. Jon Corzine's reelection bid in New Jersey and to address the NAACP in New York, he stopped to talk to Grieves and shook her hand.

Of course Obama is accustomed to being surrounded by women. At the White House he lives with First Lady Michelle Obama; their daughters, Malia and Sasha; and his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.

Still, it was a singular moment in girl power when the chopper lifted off.

Perhaps CNN put it best when it called Grieves "the woman that shattered Marine One's glass rotors."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photos: President Obama. Credit: Associated Press.

Maj. Grieves. Credit: Getty Images.

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Well, it didn't take long. And came as no surprise.

Just weeks after moving into the Democratic White House, Bo Obama used the occasion of his official photograph release today to call for universal pet health insurance.

Looking just darling and tilting his head as generations of successful public dogs have endearingly done to capture human hearts, the Portuguese water dog said that a society that could send chimpanzees into space certainly could afford to pay for such essential insurance for their beloved home companions.

Using a smaller version of the Obama Teleprompter, the nation's First Dog said millions of hard-panting canines still live in homes where at a moment's notice their sleep is disturbed by orders to sit and come and shake and roll over.

Their barks frequently go ignored. They are expected to relieve themselves according to a human's walking schedule -- and in front of passing strangers. Some humans don't even pick up after their dogs.

And, worse, when these dogs go to all the effort of retrieving a stick, the stupid human always throws it away again.

Yet in 2009 most dogs have no health coverage. None receive even minimum wage. And they are expected to eat off the floor.

Although he admitted coming from a breeder, Bo said millions of other dogs and annoying cats languish in homeless shelters with minimal chance of ever escaping.

Anticipating predictable Republican complaints, the liberal dog dismissed conservative concerns over such an expansive, expensive new national program adding billions of dollars to the federal deficit for future generations.

Bo said, frankly, there would be no future generations from him, he knew nothing about money and never heard any concern over spending too much from members of his household.

Asked about published reports that Vice President Joe Biden had claimed his dog Champ was smarter than President Obama's, Bo Obama paused. He looked around slowly at the assembled throng of human photographers and reporters eagerly noting his every word and movement on the White House lawn.

Then Bo said simply, "Last time I looked back, it wasn't Champ leading the president of the United States around on a leash."   

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Chuck Kennedy / The White House; RCA dog Nipper

They are called courtesy calls, highly scripted visits by a Supreme Court nominee to the offices of the senators who will vote on his or her nomination. The White House usually schools the nominee to make a good impression but commit no news. The senators, both supporters and potential opponents, try out their lines, testing their political instincts about a nominee's assets or liabilities against the live person.

But the visits are no tea party and have been known to torpedo a nomination.

As Roll Call reminded us this morning, White House counsel Harriet E. Miers, President George W. Bush's pick for the Supreme Court, bombed during her courtesy calls, leaving both Democratic and Republican senators dubious that she had the "intellectual weight or experience to merit a lifetime appointment to the high court." Chief Justice John G. Roberts, on the other hand, was a hit with senators when he made the rounds in 2005 -- particularly with Judiciary Committee Ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy, who threw his weight behind the nomination.

So it was more than empty palliatives today (though you'd be forgiven for reaching that conclusion) when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed federal appellate court Judge Sonia Sotomayor --  President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court and the first Latina nominated.

After a half-hour meeting, Reid ushered the judge into his anteroom, where two chairs had been set up for the benefit of reporters. Among his talking points: He was "terribly impressed" by her academic background (Princeton summa cum laude, editor of Yale Law Review) and "very impressed" by her judicial experience and her life story, "so compelling that America identifies with the underdog."

When a reporter shouted a question to the judge about how she was feeling today, Sotomayor smiled and said nothing, merely following Reid back into his office. Smart cookie, as any White House worth its political stripes coaches judicial nominees to be silent publicly until after they are confirmed.

The judge has a full schedule today -- meeting with Vermont Sen. Leahy, now chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 
appointments with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, Utah Republican Sen. Orrin G. Hatch and Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl and lunch with her two home-state Democratic senators -- veteran Charles E. Schumer and freshman Kirsten Gillibrand.

But perhaps the most interesting meeting today is between Sotomayor and Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Sessions was himself rejected as a judicial candidate during the Reagan administration after reports surfaced that he had called the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People "un-American" and had once told a colleague that they "forced civil rights down the throats of people." But Sessions, perhaps bruised by his own judicial scarring 23 years ago, has called on fellow Republicans to stop calling Sotomayor a racist.

That hasn't stopped former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who's running for president, or conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, who likes to fire up the troops. But it might win her more votes.

 -- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Susan Walsh / Associated Press